The club announced the main sponsor for the next five seasons – Electra, and thanks Elite for a unique and rare cooperation for 40 years.
After working together over four decades – an unmatched happening in world and Israeli sports – announced “Straus” group and the management of the Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball club on the end of the sponsorship agreement for the brand “Elite”
Maccabi Tel Aviv’s management announced today: “We salute “Straus” group and the “Elite” brand, and cherish those who led the group for so many years for a wonderful joined path in which we walked hand in hand for almost 40 years. Together we conquered sportive, marketing and managemental tops. Maccabi Tel Aviv and the “Elite” brand were there together in the dozen of league and cup titles, and obviously in five Euroleague championships, when the brand “Maccabi Elite Tel Aviv” became synonym to professionalism and ambition, a name everybody knows, which turned into the number one sport brand in Israel and one of the leadings in Europe. The sponsorship agreement will end at the end of this season according to the contract, nevertheless considering the tight bond between the two bodies the “Straus” group will continue to work together and support Maccabi in the future as well.
Erez Vigodman, president and chairman of “Straus” group: “We take our hat off for the basketball team of Maccabi Tel Aviv and the club’s management for great and unique achievements for many years, and the way in which the club was run in these years. After 40 years of working together we have decided it’s time to end the sponsorship according to the wish to allow the brand “Elite” to renew and open new channels from its costumers, while being obligated to allow a smooth transference to the new sponsor that will allow Maccabi Tel Aviv to maintain its great achievements which the club gathered during its long course with “Elite” during the years. I’m convinced that in the future we’ll see more cooperation between Maccabi with “Straus” group in general, and the “Elite” brand in particular, and wish the team lots of great success in general and in the upcoming Euroleague Final Four in Madrid in particular.”
The new main sponsor of the Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball club is “Electra” and that’s through three “fellow subsidiary” – “Electra Consumer Products Israel” – The leading company in Israel for electrical appliances, along with “Electra Ltd.” and “Electra Real Estate”. The agreement is for five years, in terms that aren’t less than what were given to the team by “Elite”.
As off July 1st 2008 the team will be called Maccabi “Electra” Tel Aviv.
The company is leading the Israeli market of home air-conditioners, when two of its brands – “Electra” and “Elco” hold about 45% of the market, and together lead in modernism and unique technologies. The company also imports and markets a wide variety of electrical appliances of famous international brands.
The brand “Electra” is shown on a wide range of products, including: home air-conditions, industrial air-conditions, refrigerators, freezers, washing machines, drying machines, dish-washers, ovens, TV screens and even elevators, when the selling circle of the brand is about two billion NIS.
The parent company of all the “Electra”s is “Elco” group – a public company its shares are traded in the Tel Aviv stock exchange, owned by Gershon Zalkind, and his sons Danny and Mickey Zalkind serve as joint chairmans. “Elco” group finished 2007 with selling circulation of about 7.5 billion NIS, covering about 100 countries.
The season ticket holders of the team will soon enjoy an attractive celebration of sales of “Electra”. In general, there’s no doubt in the next seasons there will be electricity in the air when Maccabi plays.
